(Jane’s mother had whooped when she’d heard Ziggy’s revelation about Max. “I knew all along it wasn’t Ziggy!” she’d cried, but so exuberantly it was obvious she must have harbored some secret doubts.)

Ziggy and Jane’s parents were going to spend the afternoon working on a brand-new Star Wars jigsaw, in the hope of finally passing the jigsaw passion to Ziggy. Tomorrow morning Dane was going to take him to an indoor rock-climbing center, then bring him back later in the afternoon.

“Have some time to yourself,” said Ziggy’s mother. “Relax. You deserve it.”

Jane was planning to catch up on laundry, pay some bills online and do a clean-out of Ziggy’s room without him there to untidy as she tidied. But as she got closer to the beach, she decided to stop at Blue Blues. It would be warm and cozy. Tom would have his little potbelly stove going. Blue Blues, she realized, had begun to feel like home.

She pulled up in a non-metered spot down near the boardwalk. There were no cars about. Everyone was indoors. All the Saturday-morning sports would have been canceled. Jane looked at the passenger-seat floor where she normally kept a fold-up umbrella and realized it was back at the apartment. Rain splattered so hard on her windshield, it was as though someone were pouring buckets of water. It looked like very determined, very wet and cold rain, the sort that would make her gasp.

She put a hand to her head, considering. At least she didn’t have as much hair to get wet. That was the other thing that was responsible for her good mood. Her new haircut.

She pulled down the rearview mirror to study her face.

“I love it,” she’d told Mrs. Ponder’s daughter yesterday afternoon. “I absolutely love it.”

“You tell everyone you see I gave you that cut,” said Lucy.

Jane couldn’t believe how the short cut had transformed her face, giving her cheekbones and enlarging her eyes. The new darker color did something good to her skin.

For the first time since before that night in the hotel, when those words had wormed their malevolent way into her head, she looked at herself in the mirror and felt uncomplicated pleasure. In fact she couldn’t stop looking at herself, sheepishly grinning and turning her head from side to side.

It was embarrassing just how much genuine happiness she was gaining from something so superficial. But maybe it was natural? Normal even? Maybe it was OK to enjoy her appearance. Maybe she didn’t need to analyze it any further than that, or to think about Saxon Banks and society’s obsession with beauty and youth and thinness and Photoshopped models setting unrealistic expectations and how a woman’s self-worth shouldn’t rest on her looks, it was what was on the inside that mattered, and blahdy, blah, blah . . . Enough! Today she had a new haircut and it suited her and that made her happy.

(“Oh!” said her mother when she’d seen her walk in the door, and she’d clamped her hand over her mouth and looked like she might burst into tears. “You don’t like it?” said Jane, putting a self-conscious hand to her head, suddenly doubting herself, and her mother had said, “Jane, you silly girl, you look gorgeous.”)

Jane put her hand on the keys in the ignition. She should go back home. It was ridiculous to go out in the rain.

But she had such an irrational craving for Blue Blues and everything about it: the smell, the warmth, the coffee. Also she wanted Tom to see her new haircut. Gay men noticed haircuts.

She took a deep breath, opened the car door and ran.

66.

Celeste woke late to the sound of rain and classical music. The house smelled of bacon and eggs. It meant that Perry was downstairs in the kitchen with both boys sitting up on the island bench in their pajamas, legs swinging, crazy-happy faces. They adored cooking with their father.

Once, she’d read an article about how every relationship had its own “love account.” Doing something kind for your partner was like a deposit. A negative comment was a withdrawal. The trick was to keep your account in credit. Slamming your wife’s head against a wall was a very large withdrawal. Getting up early with the kids and making bacon and eggs was a deposit.

She pulled herself upright and felt the back of her head. It still felt tender, but it was OK. It was amazing how fast the healing and forgetting process had begun again. The cycle was endless.

Tonight was the trivia night. She and Perry would dress up as Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley. Perry had ordered his Elvis outfit online from a premium costume supplier in London. If Prince Harry wanted to dress up as Elvis, he would probably get his outfit there. Everyone else would be wearing polyester and props from the two-dollar shop.

Tomorrow Perry was flying to Hawaii. It was a junket, he’d admitted. He’d asked her a few months back if she’d wanted to go with him, and for a moment she’d seriously considered it, as that might be the answer. A tropical holiday! Cocktails and spa treatments. Away from the stress of day-to-day life! What could go wrong? (Things could go wrong. He had hit her once in a five-star hotel because she’d teased him about his mispronunciation of the word “menial.” She would never forget the horrified humiliation on his face when he realized he’d been mispronouncing a word his whole life.)

While he was in Hawaii she would move herself and the boys into the McMahons Point apartment. She would make an appointment with a family lawyer. That would be easy. The legal world wasn’t scary to her. She knew lots of people. It would be fine. It would be awful, of course, but it would be fine. He wasn’t going to kill her. She was always so dramatic after they had an argument. It seemed especially silly to use a word like “kill” while her supposed “killer” was downstairs frying eggs with her children.